


It's the center; it's something

by julischka



Series: Something ugly; something grand [2]
Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5716003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julischka/pseuds/julischka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, additional scene to 1x11 ‘Black Tag’, written before 1x12 aired!<br/>After Neal's decision he encounters Dr. Perello. And she doesn't look too happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. III

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make Dr. Perello as convincing as possible, because first of all I like her a lot (every character who comes into the show with "well, I mean, look at him" referring to Neal Hudson can't be bad in my book) - she's basically a female Taylor, awesome - and second of all I happen to think that she is not completely wrong - as Neal wasn't in 1x10.  
> I managed to get this part of the series out just before I get to watch the new episode, so this will probably have become an AU by then.  
> Thank you so much for your reading, your interest, your comments and your kudos. This means a lot! I hope you stay tuned.

She cornered him at the very end of the eastern sides, the quietest nook, where Christa had been brought to get some rest after an infinitely stressful day. She lay in one of the hospital beds, having been hooked up to an IV.  
Jesse was not known for being nosy or indelicate but he was known for being exceptionally well informed about what was going on in his ER. So everyone who could put two and two together and who was not blinded by friendship should have figured out by now that Jesse was not one to pass up a chance to listen in on a conversation that promised to reveal information regarding professional circumstances. He made it a point to step away when the conversation turned private but even he knew that that was a squishy moral line to draw and it didn’t absolve him of prying into his colleagues’ personal businesses.  
So sue him. He had people to protect. His nurses, the patients. Hell, even the doctors were his responsibility. It was a cross to bear. Well, a heart attack didn’t come from nothing.  
So when Jesse saw Dr. Perello step in front of Dr. Hudson with a stern face, he didn’t turn and walk back or stay where he was, to give them some room. He bustled a little closer and busied himself with some equipment. He couldn’t see much, staying hidden behind a curtain, but he heard just fine.  
“… direct order from me. You may not like it and I know I certainly lack the magnitude of Dr. Taylor but I am the acting director of the emergency department and as such I am not only empowered to tell you what to do. I am also authorized to discipline you at my discretion if you don’t follow my directives. Do we agree on that?”  
“Naturally.”  
“So obviously, knowing that, you still decided to ignore my instructions of returning to Angels immediately.”  
“We had three of our doctors missing in the fi–“  
“They were not missing. They were working. They were attending a vast scene of an accident.”  
“We hadn’t heard from them or seen them in over an hour and they weren’t answering their radios. I’d say that was a pretty convincing sign that something was wrong. So, yes, in my opinion they were actually missing.”  
“You were presuming things. There could have been a thousand explanations for this. And the fact remains that it was not your job to search for fellow doctors because you hadn’t heard from them. Your only job was to stabilize the patients on the scene, so they could be brought to hospitals where they would be treated. Which we could have done a lot more efficiently if we had had every available doctor.”  
“As attending I am responsible for the status and safety of my residents.”  
“When they are with you. When they are nowhere to be found –”  
“That’s why I went to find them.”  
“And I told you expressly that that was beyond your means. There were police officers on scene. You told them to look for your colleagues, did you not?”  
“Yes, but they were just adding three names to a list of at least thirty people missing because of the accident. They had their hands full. It was obvi–“  
“So you thought that you alone could do a better job of finding three people than an entire police –” Jesse rushed forward towards Risa, so she wouldn’t announce his presence to the two discussing doctors, when she headed his way, clearly intending to ask him about something or other. He was able to get rid of her rather quickly with the promise to be there in just a few minutes.  
When he managed to head back to another monitor of a slightly sedated patient inconspicuously, he was overjoyed to find that he was able to watch both subjects of his surveillance now.  
Dr. Perello had her hands stuck in the pockets of her white coat but it didn’t seem casual at all. She was tense and her posture looked stiff and uncomfortable. The shape of Dr. Hudson didn’t seem any more at ease. He was holding his head high in a defying manner, letting his eyes wander over the background shadowing his boss’s figure.  
“… back after you had found them. But instead you chose to disregard my explicit orders a second time. What’s more, you knew then that Dr.s Savetti and Pinkney wouldn’t be able to come back to Angels to help us out here. And still you decided to go on some heedless and haphazard search and rescue mission on your own in hopes of finding a person about whose whereabouts you had absolutely no clues.”  
“You told me that the girl had talked about ‘going over’ with their car. I knew tha–”  
“You didn’t know anything! Dr. Lorenson could have been anywhere by then. You took a very long shot, Dr. Hudson, instead of attending to what was right in front of you. And those are decisions I cannot condone. I needed you here.”  
Jesse saw Hudson shift on his feet at that. He threw a curious glance towards his temporary boss. Jesse felt with him. That was an odd way to phrase her concern for the director of the ER.  
Dr. Perello stood her ground under Neal’s scrutinizing gaze. Even if she seemed to blush a little, she refused to squirm.  
Hudson took a deep breath.  
“I do understand your point, more than you can probably imagine. I had a very similar discussion with Dr. Savetti just last week. But I feel responsible not only for the medical education of our residents but also for their safety. The fact is that if I hadn’t found Savetti and Pinkney, the police might have been too late to resolve the situation peacefully. And if I hadn’t found Christa and that family, all four of them would have been in a considerably worse condition, physically and mentally.”  
In his typical manner Neal had let his eyes flicker over everything in his field of vision, including Perello’s face and posture. When he then focused his attention solely on her eyes, Jesse involuntarily stepped a little closer and tilted his head forward. He had been on the receiving end of that glare. When Dr. Hudson finally steadied his gaze on you, you had no choice but to take his words to heart. “If you want to take disciplinary action against me, feel free to do so. But when we take our residents out to do field work under the hardest of circumstances, I cannot and will never leave before I don’t know that they are going to be alright.”  
Dr. Perello dropped her head. Dr. Hudson slipped his hands in the pockets of his pants. The silence was awkward.  
When the director of the ER turned around on her heels both she and Jesse were surprised as Neal’s hand shot out to grip her shoulder. Wide eyes searched his face. “Contrary to popular belief, this job only works if we allow ourselves to care for each other, maybe even more than we have to care about our patients. My actions were never meant against you. They were only meant in favor of someone else.”  
She tilted her head back before turning around silently, looking skeptical rather than convinced. Jesse watched Neal looking after her for a few seconds. Her stride sure and confident as ever.  
Jesse let out a sigh. This was far from over.


	2. IV

She had cornered him at the very end of the eastern sides, when he was coming back from checking on Dr. Lorenson who was resting in one of the hospital beds.  
She had expected the talk to go differently. She thought she’d be able to figuratively corner him with her arguments, her concerns. Her demands were justifiable, her reasoning sound. She had thrown all her power, her authority, her big words at him. So why was she the one backing away? Why had he not conceded?  
She had been in positions like this for years now, where she was responsible for the successful operations of an ER and for the personnel working in it. There were always difficult decisions, where you had to weigh the administrative necessities against the personal issues. And she prided herself to be rational, sometimes harsh or cold, but always just. And more importantly, always right. Her career confirmed this assessment of her skills.  
And yet an experienced attending of Dr. Hudson’s obvious intelligence didn’t even seem to waver even in the face of possible disciplinary consequences. And not because of false pride or sheer stubbornness either. Had her judgement failed her this time?  
She didn’t think so but now that she recapitulated the discussion there was one indication that her opinion wasn’t as clinical as she would have everyone believe.  
With astonishment she realized that her real problem with Hudson’s decisions didn’t start when he disregarded her order and stayed in the field to find his colleagues the first time. No, she got angry when he called after Dr.s Savetti and Pinkney were safe and she expressly told him to let the officers and the search and rescue workers look for Dr. Lorenson.  
They needed him at the hospital. And he had tracked down two out of three residents. All the odds were now against him. There were professionals looking for missing persons.  
She felt like vomiting when she realized that she was now a protagonist in a high school teenage drama: He had gone for the other girl instead of coming to her.  
Seriously? Had she degraded to this? What, because Dr. Hudson was an attractive man? She had only known him for two weeks and he was her subordinate. And yet she had already entertained some hopes of something happening between the two of them? Of him trusting her? Of him following her?  
She hadn’t seen anything between him and Dr. Lorenson. She hadn’t had much time to observe but most of the times feelings became perceptible, especially in a high pressure work place like an ER. But when he had said that they, the physicians, needed to care about each other to make this job work, she hadn’t felt included. Hudson had been perfectly friendly and cooperative towards her so far, one of the nicest and most open people she had encountered at Angels Memorial. And yet in that instant she had only thought of the female resident that was lying in a bed a few meters away.  
The fact was that in such a short span of time she had allowed this working relationship – purely in her head – to come to a level, where ‘in favor of someone else’ was equivalent with ‘against you’.  
She had to get back on her feet. She had to get in contact with the real world. What was she dreaming of? And why?? In a few weeks she was on to another job in another city.  
But seeing these brown eyes fixed on her, this intense gaze, hearing his persuading voice and seeing his shoulders roll back, his neck stretch. God, it was surprisingly hard to let go.  
She was not done here. She was able to do her job and do whatever she wanted in her private life. And all the blond residents and cute nurses and petite girlfriends might want to take a step back. Her nickname wasn’t steam hammer for nothing.  
Dr. Hudson may still think he was lurking through the woods around the 405 to find his lost soulmate, his beautiful bride. He was about to be disabused of that notion. When she was done with him he wouldn’t be able to remember if Lorenson’s first name was Christel or Griselda or Ruby Gertrude Barcelona.   
But first she had to find her footing, her confidence. She had a job to do, an ER to run. And she had to decide how she dealt with Hudson’s disobedience.  
She ran her hand through her hair. This was far from over.


End file.
